Thundertaker – 1960 Cadillac Superior Coachworks Hearse

Fuller Hot Rods’ Killer '60 Cadillac Custom

Why build a hearse? “Why does somebody like a VW Bug? They have, for some weird reason, this desire. We all have the same affliction of hot rodding, and if you have enough income to do it, then why not?” Bryan Fuller replies. His shop, Fuller Hot Rods, had a customer with both the cash and the kink. He owned a stock hearse he drove as much as possible, hauling around friends and family, but he craved something more outrageous. Fuller delivered with the Thundertaker, a ’60 Cadillac Superior Coachworks hearse that’s been chopped and channeled with nearly every body panel reworked. Every bolt is high-grade, every piece of leather is flawless, it has more entertainment electronics than Best Buy, and it rides on possibly the longest hot rod chassis out there.

Construction was similar to sculpting a monument, and Fuller’s five-man crew took more than three years to shape it. “Yeah, there was, at the very least, one guy on the car for 40 hours a week for three years,” Fuller says, “but the harder the build is, the more rewarding it is in the end.” They initially hadn’t planned to chop the top, assuming the long body would need a tall roofline to maintain the proportions, but after the body was channeled over the frame (they’re not sure how much, but just enough to look right), the crew rolled it outside and voted to hack the roof. It was chopped 51⁄2 inches, and the A-pillars were altered to accept a shorter ’60 Cadillac Fleetwood windshield. The stock rear windows are made of tempered glass, which proved to be a challenge because it’s not easy to cut and shorten it. Field Farrar, one of the fabricators, slid the glass down into the quarter-panels to match the new roofline. The sunroof is made up of three separate panels and measures 38×80 inches long. Fuller has sent an application to the Guinness Book of World Records to see if it is the longest operating sunroof in the world.

The tall rear fins display quintessential Cadillac styling. The team exaggerated them, making them 21⁄2 inches taller and mirroring them on the bottom, suggesting the lower fin styling that did not begin until the ’61 model year. As a result of the changes, taller taillights and trim had to be made. The front fenders and hood are the same dimensions as stock, but all of the rear half was built from scratch. “You always want to start off with as solid of a car as you can, but with this level of fabrication, you don’t feel right cutting up a perfect car,” Field tells us. “The hearse purists would be happy to know we saved one that probably wasn’t worth saving.”

The Art Morrison chassis uses a RideTech airbag suspension with two separate compressors; the front compressor and tank are hidden in the front bumper, while the rear is inside the passenger quarter-panel. Every exposed bolt or nut is ARP head-bolt-grade material. That strength seems unnecessary until you learn the hearse weighs somewhere around 8,000 pounds dry. A double-decker, two-axle trailer loaded with two motorcycles and the Cadillac popped six tires on the trip from Fuller’s in Atlanta, Georgia, to the SEMA Show in Las Vegas and then to our studio in El Segundo, California.

That weight is partially due to a tremendous amount of gadgets tied into the Cad, all powered by ISIS controls. There are only 12 switches within the driver’s reach. Everything in the car, including the suspension, remote start, windows, stereo, and so on, can be controlled by an ISIS iPhone app. There is a partition between the two front seats that gives access to two TV screens operated by two Xbox game consoles. The cavernous interior has two Vintage Air Gen-IV A/C units, one in the front dash and another between the front seats. All the electronics are powered by two batteries hidden in the back and one in the front bumper. The interior was a mammoth undertaking. The two front bench seats are original ’60 Cadillac seat frames, but the rear seat is totally custom. Everything below the belt line is real white leather; everything above the beltline is ultra white leather. Price Upholstery in Birmingham, Alabama covered the entire interior. All of the grey material is real ’60 Cadillac limousine fabric that has been sitting on the shelves since new, Fuller grabbed the last new material known to exist.

The team at Fuller built panels for the interior from bare thin aluminum. Fuller flew to a junkyard called Honest John’s Caddy Corner in Justin, Texas, with the panels in his suitcase. He spent a full day walking through the junkyard collecting miscellaneous pieces for the interior, using the panels as a reference, grabbing items he thought would work both physically and visually. Most pieces like interior door handles, armrests, vents, and trim came from ’57-’64 Cadillacs that Fuller found in the yard. All of the fresh-air vents, that now act as speaker covers and interior light covers, came from six different ’57 Cadillac’s. Fuller reluctantly admitted, “We probably raised the valve of those pieces for that car.”

Despite the three-year build time, the Fuller team still had to execute one of the industry’s now-normal epic thrashes to get the Thundertaker presentable for the ’12 SEMA Show last November.Honestly, the hearse had not yet moved under its own power when we photographed it, though by the time you read this, it will be done touring and delivered to its owner. “So many people said it made their day to see it,” said Fuller after the ’12 SEMA show. “I’m jacked. I can’t wait to drive that thing.”

Fuller, the nutcase hot rodder that he is, began to imagine the Cad’s potential on the dry lakes: “Think about it, it’s build for speed. It’s got an Art Morrison chassis, a Strange 9-inch, a big-block…strap a couple turbos to the 454, take that thing to Bonneville, and hammer down. That would be funny.” Fuller sees the hearse living forever. “I just keep envisioning a guy buying this thing in 100 years from now, driving it, and telling his pals, ‘You need to see this hearse I just bought. It’s wild.”

Hearses Then and Now

Superior Coaches has been in business since 1923 and was the country’s largest manufacturer of school buses when this hearse was built in 1960. Another commercial vehicle manufacturer that used GM cars is S&S Coach Company, founded in 1876. Today, Accubuilt owns both Superior and S&S.

In 1960, the buildup of a hearse or ambulance began when GM sent Superior a chassis with only the front clip of the body, with the interior and miscellaneous parts in a box. Superior placed the cowl on a chassis jig and built the rest of the body themselves, then laid the body onto the chassis. After 1984, GM no longer sold a commercial chassis and instead offered what it called an Incomplete Chassis. A four-door Cadillac was shipped with the rear doors in a box, little interior, and no trunk. Superior would strip down the car, stretch the chassis on a jig, and build the rear half of the body in-house. The company would also re-angle the windshield pillars and alter the body for better proportions. Beginning in 2013, GM no longer allowed its licensees to alter the windshield pillars, requiring them to use the styling as provided.

Superior Coaches in 1960

Superior Coaches offered 78 different models of hearses, not including flower cars and ambulances.

The cheapest hearse was $10,194; the most expensive was $12,427. That’s roughly twice the price of a Cadillac passenger car of the same vintage.

A three-way hearse was designed to allow a casket to be loaded through either the side doors or the rear door. A straight-in loader had only the rear door.

A combination unit was used in small towns where hearses saw double duty as ambulances; that design was discontinued in 1979.

Cadillac’s first hearse was a ’14 model.

Superior Hearse Sales in 1960

128 Three-Way Loaders

221 Straight-In Loaders

468 Combination Hearses

10 Flower Cars (open in rear like an El Camino)

150 Ambulances

The Man Who Made a Monster

Fuller hosted the popular TV series Two Guys Garage for four and a half years. He has worked on Overhaulin’, and helped out with shows like Discovery’s Biker Build-Off. For the last few years, Fuller has been back building cars without the camera, and one of Fuller Hot Rods’ creations is the ’61 Chevy called Impaler that was featured in the Apr. ’11 issue of HRM. We also ran a quick interview with him in the May ’12 issue, and perhaps you’ve seen his fabrication book, Full-Bore Sheet Metal. The latest big project at his shop is an all-wheel-drive ’32 Ford sedan with a 900hp Ford Coyote engine. We can’t wait to see that.

“The 1960 Superior is a matchless, years-ahead blend of styling, performance and efficiency, built to reflect your personal prestige and the high standard of service.” — 1960 Superior Coach Corporation Ad

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